Virgin Atlantic seems to be happy all of it’s fleet have been configured with connectivity, so passengers can connect over Wi-Fi to the Internet whilst flying at 35,000ft.
Virgin Atlantic Airbus A340-600 coming into Heathrow Airport – now with inflight wifi
You will be able to use your devices from just over 10,000ft to just before landing. Depending on the plane will depend on who you connect with. With the Boeing 787s, Virgin Atlantic have chosen to go with Panasonic and their Ka solution. Meanwhile on the rest of the fleet, Gogo 2Ku will be used.
Here’s a handy breakdown of what it’ll cost and what technology is where – as well as the prices.
Aircaft type Pass type Price Bandwidth/Length Technology Boeing 787 WiFi light £4.99 for 40mb Panasonic Ka Boeing 787 WiFi Max £14.99 for 150mb Panasonic Ka Airbus A330/A340 Messaging Pass Messaging for flight Gogo 2Ku Airbus A330/A340 WiFi Light One hour Internet Gogo 2Ku Airbus A330/A340 WiFi Max Internet for full flight Gogo 2Ku Boeing 747 Messaging Pass Messaging for flight Gogo 2Ku Boeing 747 WiFi Light One hour Internet Gogo 2Ku Boeing 747 WiFi Max Internet for full flight Gogo 2Ku
Virgin Atlantic claim that they are the first airline in Europe to offer WiFi across its fleet – and considering the size of it (39 active frames according to Airfleets), it’s not a moment too soon.
With this move, Virgin Atlantic customers will be able to surf when travelling from London and Manchester to the US, Caribbean, Africa, Asia and the Middle East.
Virgin Atlantic have revealed that a 42% of their passengers are going for Max packages, with popular routes being London Heathrow to New York (JFK), San Francisco and Atlanta.
As we seek to be connected all the time in the air – it’s welcome to see an airline completing its rollout of in-flight WiFi technology.
And for those are married to Snapchat or Instagram in the air… you’re going to be pretty well sorted.
But the technology matters in the air – and what sort of technology connects you to the Internet whilst in the air. And that’s a subject I’ll be coming back to in the next few days..
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Finally!